Pastor Maldonado believes the new Williams FW35 will enable him to be competitive this season after being impressed with it in pre-season testing. The Venezuelan sees it as a definite step forward from its predecessor and expects it to only get faster when they unlock its full potential.
“Winter testing has been good for us. The FW35 has been very reliable but we are still learning how the car behaves. The FW35 is completely different to drive compared to the FW34, mainly because of the new Coanda exhaust. It has given us greater overall downforce but we still have a way to go to make sure we get the maximum benefit. We have a good base to work from though so now we just need to unlock the full potential of the car. We have some great data to compare from this year and last, so it’s all to do back at the factory now.”
Teammate Valtteri Bottas spent his part of the last day concentrating on qualifying performance and feels he got everything he needed out of his time in the car.
“We were focussing on shorter runs today and I now feel ready for a qualifying session. We did a high fuel run at the end of the day but we are still working hard to get the most out of the package we have. Overall, it has been a productive winter test and I’ve achieved what I wanted to from it. The car has been really reliable and now I feel fully prepared for the start of the season.”
